Busing

by Mr. Nobel

(*) – The writer does not condone racial or any other type of intolerance. He does, however, advocate petting puppies as a means of venting your frustrations.

Do you ever think about how boring it must be to be a bus driver?

I mean, the life’s goal and purpose of a bus driver is to be on time. Not try to maximize efficiency of his driving – that’s someone else’s job. It’s just to adhere religiously to a schedule. He can’t even divert himself on the job. It’s not like working in McDonalds, where he could take out his frustrations on the burger patties or do some texting in a lull. He texts while driving a bus, and he winds up on the wrong side of a lawsuit. Or dead. Bus drivers don’t have a good record of surviving traffic accidents do they?

And, unlike almost any other job, there’s really no human interest angle to being a modern bus driver. If he works a rush hour route, all his passengers will be in a hurry to get on and then get off, forget about even a solitary “Good morning,” or “Thanks.” God help him if he arrives too late or leaves too early.

If he work a low-level route, all his passengers will be the diseased detritus of the area(*), mixed with a few punk truants plugged into their iPods. Maybe, he tries to be cheerful. Make some quirky announcements every once in a while. Maybe, he starts to recognize some faces on his route. Get a friendly wave once in a while. How does he balance being a warm, open person and not going full-retard and expose himself as an incurably lonely, Travis Bickle-lite sociopath? Or at least coming across as one?

And, then, what if he switch routes? Maybe the route he’s driving with the nice young mother isn’t doing so hot in terms of ridership. Maybe, the board, in their infinite wisdom, decides to cut some service and buses on that line, punt him over to the rush hour buses.

You think about this, and then you glance at your watch. 4:15? 4:15! God damn it, that cunt fucking asswart bus driver was supposed to get here at fucking 4:05! 4:05! Now you’re going to miss your fucking connecting bus and then be suck at the motherfucking barren ass Metro station for another 30 minutes. Fucking hell. And the kicker is he’s probably some lowlife, degenerate druggie black man or Mexican(*) who spent too much time jerking off at the terminus to be here on time. Fuck that blue collar, hoity-toity, know-nothing asshole. Fuck him in the ass! What does he know about having to work? They should deport these assholes back to Somalia. And…Utah. And, uh…Papua New Guinea. Yeah, that’s right, Papua New Guinea. Fucking immigrants.

(*) – The writer does not condone racial or any other type of intolerance. He does, however, advocate petting puppies as a means of venting your frustrations.